ABSTRACT
The newspaper industry was nearly destroyed, and may yet be killed off entirely, by the internet. The internet brought with it a host of changes, of course, but not all of them were immediately apparent. The case of Knight Ridder shows some of the problems of future casting. One of the largest and most profitable newspaper chains in the US in the 1990s, Knight Ridder led the way in innovating online news coverage, especially in its flagship publication on the West Coast, The San Jose Mercury News and its Mercury Center. The chapter that immediately follows an introduction overviews the first foray of newspapers into online spaces, during the mid-to-late 1990s, including such early adopters as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The San Jose Mercury News in the US, and The Guardian and the BBC in the UK.
